Golf’s just not what it used to be. Gone are the days when you had to wait years and years for a membership – if you were eligible at all – for which you’d be happy to pay the earth.

These days, waiting lists at all but the most exclusive clubs around the country barely exist, breathtaking joining fees have largely been abolished or halved and – unheard of until recently – golf courses are resorting to – gasp! – advertising to attract new members.

Expect a flurry of such publicity drives this month as clubs whose year ends on March 31 spruik their wares in an effort to steal you away from your existing club or get you started and on board for the long term.

They’ll try to win you over with all sorts of sweeteners like a free set of clubs, for example, as Melbourne’s Keysborough Golf Club has been giving new members for some time. Cranbourne Golf Club, in that city’s south-east, has introduced what’s believed to be a market first in allowing golfers aged under 40 to buy a 20-round casual membership for play any day of the week. And down on the Mornington Peninsula, a big 18-hole resort-style course is said to be offering a $60 round with a cart and burger thrown in, too.

These are clear signs of the steady and accelerating decline in golf, particularly among those in the 25 to 40 age group. What the sport needs, say those immersed in it, is another Greg Norman, Australia’s former world number one.

Heroes can certainly make all the difference. A few years ago, when Tiger Woods was still making all the right moves instead of the very wrong ones, my son Connor, now 6, started agitating to play. Knowing nothing about the sport, I inquired about coaching options for children at some of the larger local golf shops. All pointers led to PGA professional Jamie McCallum, a former Australian amateur runner-up and Victorian team captain who had moved on to teaching at Albert Park Driving Range.

When Connor recommenced with McCallum last month after some time off, McCallum said golf had really gone off the boil. Albert Park remained the busiest coaching range in the country, but numbers were down among discretionary spenders, particularly since the financial crisis.

At the same time, higher numbers of redundant professionals seemed to be showing up for a hit as a stress-reliever, or simply to pass the time. A bucket of balls is still way cheaper than annual subs.

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McCallum’s boss, general manager David Wren, says the Albert Park range has seen its biggest ever drop-off of walk-up players in the past four months: “They’re down 25 per cent, and that’s been over summer, which is peak time."

Wren reckons the take-up of golf has been dropping for the past 10 years, and he’d know. He’s played the tour and been a PGA-accredited career professional for 30 years.

“My personal take is that the juniors – across all codes of football and sports – aren’t transitioning into those sports," he says. “They’re being targeted to join things like AusKick or tennis programs from age five now, but once they get to 18, they don’t want to do it any more."

Golf’s no different. “All the junior memberships are down, and we’re missing them. And the 25 to 40-year-old is probably bike riding, or has two kids and is time poor. There’s also that financial pressure of justifying to your partner $12,000 to join a club."

National figures from Golf Australia show the clear decline in club membership and courses numbers since 2000. Spokesman Hamish Jones says Australia still has about 1600 courses, but total memberships have fallen almost 20 per cent since the highs of about 500,000.

Still, those who are playing seem to be playing more, the total number of rounds played last calendar year rising 2.4 per cent on 2011 to 12.38 million. Forty-five per cent of them were played on city courses.

To keep those players coming back, clubs have had to expand their membership categories from the traditional two options of six and seven-day playing rights to four or five categories today.

Not even Melbourne’s world-famous Sandbelt clubs have been immune from the fallout, some of them gradually softening their criteria in areas where, in the past, they would never have had to bend.

Those which have managed to maintain joining fees of $15,000-plus have started to allow members to pay them off over a few years rather than up front. Commonwealth Golf Club has simply halved its joining fee to $5000 for those younger than 40. And Yarra Yarra recently took in about 100 new members – many pinched from other clubs, apparently – by offering transferable playing rights (which can be on-sold) for $8000-$10,000.

Meanwhile, the membership wait list at the Royal Melbourne Golf Course, which once required up to 12 years of patience, now opens up in less than five years. Wait lists at Huntingdale, Yarra Yarra and Commonwealth have quietly gone away altogether. Sure, such prestigious clubs still offer bragging rights, but the brag is somehow less interesting these days.

Cranbourne Golf Club president Michael Warren says many of the clubs have become “victims of what we’re trying to do to attract members".

In deciding to abandon joining fees, for example, the clubs encourage a lack of loyalty among members who can come and go as they please.

“Some clubs are considering reestablishing the fee [because] we don’t want to have people for one or two years then going off to the next club because it’s making a better offer," Warren says.

But the root of the problem, says Wren, is creating golfers in the first place.

“Many people who have an experience with golf really want to do it," he says. “But for every 100 people who wake up one morning deciding they’d like to play – and these are my numbers – I’d guess only 5 per cent would become regulars. It’s a hard game, and you only know the reward once you get through the first six or 12 months of it.

“That’s why Cash Converters is full of used golf clubs, guitars and gym equipment."

So, is this what golf is coming to? If that’s the case, as their advertising drives for membership hit full swing in these weeks, you might as well make them an offer. You never know your luck. These days, they might just do you a deal.